After The Circus Poem by Charles Hanson Towne

We came away from the tinsel and false,
From the rings where we saw the elephants waltz;
From the clowns with their grins and painted faces,
And the horses put through their delicate paces;
From the swinging forms on the high trapeze,
And the rhythm and leaps of a young Chinese;
From the bareback riders devoid of fear
On the tanbark trail where the chariots veer.

Was it wrong to forget, for an hour or two,
In a world that is tragic and all askew,
The panic and pain, the sadness and error,
The sound of guns and the reign of terror?
The children's laughter had made us see
That this was a place where joy could be.
Maybe this was the real world, loving and gay,
And ours was the false world ... who can say?